Another plot twist in the Kenney story

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Jason Kenney was in the room when his operatives hatched the final plan for Jeff Callaway to run a "kamikaze" campaign against Brian Jean, Kenney's rival for the UCP leadership, CBC's Carolyn Dunn reported Wednesday, drawing on transcripts of interviews with witnesses to sketch a picture of how Kenney's team agreed to run a stalking horse campaign against Jean.

CBC News provided Duane Bratt, a political scientist with Mount Royal University who has closely followed developments of the kamikaze campaign story, with copies of two key interviews. "This is the first real sort of stuff that we've got connecting Jason Kenney himself to what was going on with Callaway," he said.  Kenney has denied any personal knowledge of the kamikaze campaign or its funding. "They've got him meeting with Callaway and, more importantly, discussing money," Bratt said after reading the transcripts. "This was carefully orchestrated from the beginning."

Mail-in vote: Dunn's story landed with a resounding thud as UCP supporters are preparing to decide Kenney's fate in an April 9 vote that was to have taken place in Red Deer, but in a last-minute plot twist, the party has decided to have a mail-in vote, Don Braid writes in the Calgary Herald.

Thirty-three UCP riding presidents had urged the party to stick to the original plan as the only way to ensure the honesty and integrity of the vote. UCP president Cynthia Moore completely agreed with that view, and said so. But on Wednesday morning, Moore said in an email to UCP members: “Last night, your UCP board decided to ensure that every single member of our party has an opportunity to vote in the leadership review by moving to a mail-in ballot.”

Dias allegation: Unifor alleged Wednesday that former president Jerry Dias took $50,000 from a supplier of COVID-19 rapid test kits that he promoted to employers, CP reports.

After an internal investigation, Unifor national secretary-treasurer Lana Payne said Dias stands charged with violating the code of ethics and democratic practices of the Unifor constitution. “What you’re about to hear will be distressing, but I remind you all that no one member is above our constitution, not the highest ranking elected officers, no one,” Payne said. “We are all equal under that constitution.”

Mixed feelings: Not all New Democrat MPs are enthusiastic about the new governing arrangement reached with the Liberals, the Post reports. NDP MP Jenny Kwan told reporters some NDP MPs don’t trust the Liberals: “They’re worried that they won’t actually act on the agreement. So some people are very concerned and not trusting of the government, and rightfully so, given the pattern that we have seen.”

Against: Francois Legault warned Wednesday that the Liberal-NDP accord will lead to intrusions into provincial affairs, the Globe reports.

“I’m sorry but the federal government has no expertise to direct how much money we should be spending on long-term care, how much we should spend on mental health, how much we should devote toward hiring more nurses,” he said. “I know there is a very strong common front from the provinces to say that health care is a provincial jurisdiction. But now we have two very centralist parties – the Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP – that want to impose this on all of the provinces. I think they will run into a wall.”

Très risqué: In La Presse, Michel C. Auger offers an interesting historical perspective on the arrangement, observing that while the deal poses huge risks to the New Democrats, it also offers them time, which both they, and the prime minister, need. (translation)

The agreement with the NDP gives [Justin Trudeau] time either to plan a transition or to prepare for a possible final election campaign. For the NDP, this gives time to see ahead. The party is never very rich and never as well organized as it would like, and a rushed election could be very problematic. The organization in Quebec is in tatters and there is nothing left of the orange wave of 2011. And in several provinces, things are not much better. The NDP is the party that has the most advantage in seeing the government's current mandate go as far as possible.

Pro-democracy: Justin Trudeau made a plea to European parliamentarians to come together as democracies in the face of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, CP reports.

Trudeau said the war in Ukraine poses a security threat not only to Europe, but to western democracies and the world. “Putin’s attack on Ukraine is an attack on the values that form the pillars of all democracies. We have a responsibility to make the case to people about why these values matter so much — not just to Ukrainians but to us all,” Trudeau said in his remarks.

— Stephen Maher

Politics News & Analysis